“Doing Being a Father”: Ethnographic Perspectives on Intimate Fathering as Identity Work in Côte d’Ivoire

Abstract

Abstract: This article looks at fatherhood and fathering as performative practices. Based on ethnographic fieldwork among middle-class fathers in urban Côte d’Ivoire, it explores intimate fathering as both an exceptional practice and a reinterpretation of hegemonic masculinities. Intimate fathering offers an alternative way of living for Ivorian men, who use it to renegotiate and reevaluate gender roles and relations between nuclear and extended families and to craft imaginaries of father-child relationships that differ greatly from their own experiences as children. I address here two blind spots in the study of contemporary parenting in Africa: paternal performances of care, often neglected in the literature in favor of mothering, and the dominant discourse of African fatherhood in crisis, highlighting a more nuanced view of engaged fatherhood.